Welcome All to 0.49.17

You might notice something unusual: we jumped from 0.49.15 directly to 0.49.17. What happened? A major bug surfaced at the last minute, one that only appears after the releases are built. Therefore, while 49.16 does exist, it will never be officially released, and if you find it DO NOT USE IT.

As we close this year, let’s welcome version 49.17. Looking back on 2023, we started with version 0.49.11. Although we’ve had only six releases this year, significant progress was made across all three programs. Highlights include major UI enhancements, Alpha Strike Support, updates to Record Sheet style, Stratcon enhancements, a complete overhaul of Advanced Search, enhanced Unit tooltips, the ability to display the game board in all phases, Strategic BattleForce conversions, a full overhaul of Client settings, Unit Mekview improvements, the introduction of a basic GM mode, along with numerous bug fixes and data additions. A special mention to Deadborder for their continuous efforts in creating and improving sprites.

We are still not close to a .50 Stable release. We are rethinking how we present Stable vs. Development releases, but more on this will come in the new year. For specific changes in this release, please refer to the sections below.

For detailed information, ensure you click the links in some of the list items below. The full release notes are at the end of this section. Here’s what’s new:

MegaMek

MegaMekLab

MekHQ

MekHQ StratCon Alpha

No new updates in this release.

A Few Reminders

Unit File Alignment with MUL

We aligned unit files with the MUL by removing the term “(Standard)”, resulting in the removal of nearly 1000 instances. Our Quality Assurance (QA) team has thoroughly tested these changes. There’s a potential risk in MekHQ with CPNX files due to their reliance on unit names. If errors occur while loading your campaign file, we apologize for the inconvenience. For assistance, please refer to this post.

Removal of Unofficial Units Zip

Based on feedback from our Discord and a poll where 75% of players favored this decision, we’ve removed the unofficial units zip from this release. This change allows us to focus on canon units.

To reintegrate the units:

User Data Directory for MegaMek, MegaMekLab, and MekHQ

We’ve added a customizable User Data Directory feature. This allows you to set a single external directory for storing game resources like units, camos, and fonts, which is accessible across different installations and versions of MegaMek, MegaMekLab, and MekHQ.

Key Points

MekHQ Campaign Files

Remember, MekHQ campaign files are NOT backward compatible. Moving your campaign to a newer version prevents reverting to an older one, but keeping backups allows play in both versions for comparison.

Regarding Simultaneous (Sim) Stuff

The issue with skipping units is largely resolved. We’re aware of and investigating the issue where two players can cancel each other’s weapon selections, but there’s no ETA for a fix.

The future of Sim Stuff is under review. If our fixes prove effective, Sim Movement is likely to be the only feature removed, as it’s poorly coded and doesn’t adhere to TT rules used in Double Blind. Thus, Sim Deployment, Sim Targeting, Sim Firing, and Sim Physical are likely to remain. The term likely is used as defined by Merriam-Webster: “having a high probability of occurring or being true: very probable”.

Stable 0.50.0 Status Update

We’re not yet at the point of releasing a Stable 0.5.0. March 5th, 2024, will mark three years of development. We are exploring different ways to present Stable vs. Development releases and hope to provide updates soon.

In the meantime, we recommend players move to a good Dev release, like 0.49.15, which had a manageable bug from MegaMek to MekHQ. See here for details. Note that using a dev release requires Java 11 or 17 (see the next section).

Java 11 and 17

We’ve updated to Java 11. To use the 0.49.x development branches, an update is needed. As Java is now open source, we recommend Adoptium Temurin 11. Help pages for Windows and Mac users are available. Linux users should use their package manager to install Adoptium Temurin.

This release also supports Java 17, which has undergone some testing. More player usage is needed, but Java 11 remains our recommended version.

Social Media

Join our official MegaMek Discord, our primary community hub for the suite. We offer superior voice support, individual channels, and assistance for the official public servers. We’re also part of community Discords Everything BattleTech and Classic BattleTech. Find us on Facebook at MegaMek BattleTech and MegaMek.

Mac Users

Check out this workaround for Mac Operating Systems.

Contributing

Interested in contributing? Find out how here.

Updating Your Campaign

  1. Make backups of your campaigns and customs.
  2. Treat each release as stand-alone; copy your data forward from older versions, never backward.
  3. Do not copy MegaMek saves or any preference file from a different version.

MegaMek Change Log

Download

0.49.17 (2023-12-31 1900 UTC)

0.49.16 (2023-12-30 2200 UTC)

MegaMekLab Change Log

Download

0.49.17 (2023-12-31 1900 UTC)

0.49.16 (2023-12-30 2200 UTC)

MekHQ Change Log

Download

0.49.17 (2023-12-31 1900 UTC)

0.49.16 (2023-12-30 2200 UTC)

On behalf of the MegaMek team, we wish everyone a safe and successful 2024. Cheers!